


Give A Little

by breakdancingonthemoon



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Autistic Will Graham, Bisexual Will Graham, Bottom Will Graham, Daddy Kink, Dark, Dubious Consent, Falling In Love, Manipulative Hannibal Lecter, Parent/Child Incest, Puppy Play, Rape Fantasy, Sugar Daddy, Therapy, Top Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham Has Encephalitis, bacause hannibal buys him a bunch of shit, guys this story is fucking dark, will knows exactly what hes doing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 13:10:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20948873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breakdancingonthemoon/pseuds/breakdancingonthemoon
Summary: Hannibal’s face doesn’t change. “We’ve already established that you were desperate for affection. Even in the face of sexual violence you wished to be held.”Will shook his head. “There was nothing violent about it.”“Will-”“Hannibal.” Will grins. “I’m fucked up.”Hannibal stops at that.And suddenly he’s leaning forward in excitement, eyes twinkling.“Oh, you remarkable boy.”Will unconsciously mirror's what people want during sex because of his empathy. Hannibal, as his therapist, tries to help him figure out what he actually wants. And buys him a lot of expensive shit in the process.





	Give A Little

“Have you ever had sex with a man?”

Will didn’t quite flinch. It was more of a twitch, a subtle jerking movement. He drummed his fingers against the arms of the chair.

“You don’t waste time, do you?” He tried to joke. It fell flat, smile shaped more on the side of a grimace.

“Your time is precious, Will. I have no intention of wasting it.” Hannibal never smiles, but his lip twitches, a subtle muscle movement pulling at the corner of his mouth. Micro expressions. You wouldn’t notice it if you hadn’t known him for a very long time.

Will hasn’t. He’s just a freak.

“Let me try again: How old were you when you first begin to fantasize?” Hannibal moves on, but he never lets anything go. They’ll come back to it once he thinks Will’s been suitably subdued. Will always tells himself that won’t happen. It always does.

Will tapped his foot, toe to the floor then up again. Sporadic. “I was fifteen.”

“Late bloomer?”

He grinned. “Human connection has never been my strong suit.”

“That extends to sex.”

“There’s no more intimate form of human connection than the physical act of penetration, is there?”

“I would beg to differ.” Hannibal set his clipboard down, pen carefully placed at the top where the paper is clipped down. “Humanity is notorious for finding ways to connect even in the most dire of circumstances.”

Penetration. Consumption.

“Intimate.” Will muttered.

Hannibal breathed out from his nose. It’s the closest to laughter he ever gets.

“Don’t you think this is a bit intrusive for our second session, Doctor?” Will asked, cocky and uncomfortable and he had a headache from the sensory overload. Loud noises and bright lights and clear, obvious emotions he can filter out. But this, subconsciously picking apart the micro expressions and hidden motives on an almost strangers face? It’s too much. He wished he hadn’t taken off his coat so that he could mess with the clicker in its pocket.

“On the contrary, this is vital information necessary to begin even the most basic of therapy. Sexuality influences far more than we expect it to.” He settles down more comfortably in his chair. The epitome of elegance. “You were fifteen?”

Will hesitates. “Yeah.”

“Freshman year?”

“Sophmore, actually.”

He nods, sounds almost proud when he says, “You skipped a grade.”

“I skipped two.”

That twitch at the corner of his lips. His eyes crinkle slightly.

“I expect nothing less from one as remarkably intelligent as yourself.”

“That’s not how the rest of the school took it. The nineties weren’t exactly a progressive time for the south.”

“The first generation born out of segregation was just entering adulthood. It comes with the territory.”

“I’m white.”

“You were different. People always fear what they do not understand.”

Will tries to relax. He really, really does. The office is warm, the coals burning to ash in the fireplace. The smell of pine and basil lingers in the air. “I was a freak.”

“You still are.” 

Wills head snaps up. Hannibal’s expression is the same, eyes crinkled, lip twitched. “Whoever said that was a bad thing?”

Will barks out a laugh. He’s sweating, collar sticking to the back of his shirt. “You’re not a very conventional therapist.”

“You’re not a conventional patient. Tell me about your sophmore year.”

Will closes his eyes. The walls are white, paint peeling on the cheap forty year old plaster. Sweltering heat, humidity making his curls frizz up more than they already do. “Her name was Lou Anne.”

“A good southern christian.”

“You could say that again. She was the president of the bible study.”

“Were you raised in a religious household, Will?”

He shook his head. “Dad wasn’t exactly the poster boy for God. He used to chase missionaries off our trailer with a baseball bat.” Will chuckles lightly. “One time they came while he was in the shower. His towel fell halfway to their car. They stopped dropping by after that.”

That seems to amuse Hannibal, making him purse his lips in an obvious effort not to laugh. “I don’t fault them.”

Will stops smiling. “A future pastors wife, and an atheist. It seemed I was doomed from the start.”

Hannibal raises his eyebrow. “But?”

He averts his eyes. God, he hates this. “She was always nice to me. I was weird, didn’t have the money for new books or new clothes and I got in fights all the time. But she said hi to me in the hallways and sat with me at lunch sometimes. She had blond hair.”

“You like blond hair.”

“I like blond hair.”

“Go on.”

He fidgets in his seat. Tugs on the collar of his shirt. 

Will swallows. “She had a boyfriend.”

Hannibal actually puts his clipboard on the side table. He folds his hands over his knees and leans forward, entranced. Will wonders if he knows how much excitement is rolling off of him. To the normal person, he had all the appearance of a concerned authority figure. To Will, he looked like he was having fun. “You entered into a polyamorous relationship?”

“I...not exactly.”

“An open relationship?”

“Not...not exactly.”

He swallows again, eyes flicking over to his coat where he left the clicker in his pocket. Hannibal follows his eyes direction, before standing and walking over to the coat rack, almost seeming to glide along the floor. He carefully lifts Will’s coat off the hook and takes it over to him, handing it to him gently.

“Thanks,” Will mumbles, before shoving his hand in the pocket to take out the clicker. He feels sweat gathering under his pits, feels disgusting. Like a dog slobbering all over the nice couch cushions.

“They were older than me. Juniors. They’d been together since freshman year.” He rubs his thumb over the plastic, feels it sooth him, starts clicking rapidly. Hannibal's ear twitches, and he tries to slow the frantic clicking, know show god awful annoying it can be, but he needs something to do with his hands so that he doesn’t start scratching at himself.

“The quarterback and the cheerleader.” 

Will laughs, looking at Hannibal's shoes. Finely pressed leather. Shined and clearly taken care of. He wonders if they were hand made. “Lou Anne wasn’t a cheerleader. She was far too pure for clothes like that. All that... _ hip  _ gyration was against the word of God.” He clicked it again. “But Johnny was a football player.”

“Was he built like one?”

Will nods, closing his eyes. Smelling the sweat from his jersey, seeing his dimpled cheeks. “He was over six foot. Strong jawline, broad shoulders.”

“Blonde?”

“Yeah. Blonde.”

Hannibal hummed. Waiting for him.

Will sighs. “I didn’t know him as well as Lou Anne. It was Friday, I was packing up for the weekend, and she met me by my locker. Her hair was down, not in her usual headband. She smelled like lavender.”

“What was she there for, Will?”

“She invited me to come with her to that night’s homecoming game.” He smiled lazily at the memory, her soft soft hand brushing his arm, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “My dad spent an hour picking out something for me to wear, even though I told him it wasn’t a date, that she had a sweetheart already. But he was just so  _ excited  _ for me, you know? I didn’t have any friends. Someone had left a dead cat on our front porch, and he didn’t say, but he thought I was the one that killed it. So a nice sweet class president girl who was saving her Virginity for marriage, picking me up in a blue Mercedes for an all American Football game? He was practically crying when he hugged me goodbye and I got in her car.”

“He loved you, but he didn’t understand you.”

Will shook his head. “No, we’re not talking about my father right now. We’re talking about fucking.”

“And are the two mutually exclusive for you?” Hannibal asked in amusement, twinkle in his eye.

Will somehow knew, that if he said no, Hannibal wouldn’t judge him. 

Hannibal wouldn’t judge him for Lou Anne either.

“She had her hand on my thigh the entire drive there.”

“How would a fifteen year old boy react to that kind of touch?”

Will snorted. “I was sweating through the shirt my dad had ironed for me.” Hannibal quirks an eyebrow, as if the two of them are sharing the memory. He feels less alone. “We met up with her friends at the game. They were mostly seniors, thought it was cool that I was at a college reading level. They were nice, because Lou Anne was nice. She bought me two hot dogs and a giant cherry coke and we split a bag of popcorn. She was so excited the whole time, kept standing up and cheering for Johnny, and she would whisper what was going on in the game into my ear with an arm wrapped around my shoulder.”

“During halftime, she and I popped down the stand and met Johnny where he was sitting with his team. He lifted her up and kissed her, and when he saw me he...ruffled my hair and said I looked handsome. He asked where my coat was, and I was too embarrassed to say I didn’t bring it because it had holes in it, so I said I’d left it on accident. He pulled his lettermans jacket off the bench and wrapped it around my shoulders, asked if I wanted to go out to eat with him and Lou Anne after the game.” He shivers, remembering Johnny’s strong hands stroking behind his ear when he ruffled his hair. “I was more interested in the game after that.”

“They made you feel special.”

“They made me feel  _ seen.”  _ Will needed Hannibal to know, to feel what he had felt that day. “I was a nobody. A freak. People used to say my dad fucked me and that’s why my mom left, and these two pure people wanted to take me out the way normal kids did.”

“I thought we weren’t getting into your father.”

“We’re not.”

“You’re talking an awful lot about him.”

Will clicked his clicker.

It was quiet for a minute. Hannibal uncrossed, and recrossed his legs. Elegant. Graceful.

“After the game, we went to Burger King with some of his football friends.” Will said, nerves alight. “Johnny let me keep wearing the jacket. He bought me a fuck ton of food, sat me down between him and Lou Anne. They both had a...hand on my thigh. Lou Anne would squeeze it occasionally, reassuring. Johnny was more active. He kept stroking it through the whole meal, laughing and talking with his friends while digging his fingers into the inseam of my jeans. And they were old jeans.” He squirms in his seat, feels the ghost of strong fingers groping him. “The kind with holes on the inside of your thighs, worn down from friction. He kept playing with the holes, pushing his fingers inside playfully. I...I didn’t realize that it wasn’t normal.” Will swallows, shifts in his seat. “I didn’t know it was a sexual thing, I just thought it was what... _ friends  _ did.”

Hannibal nodded, eyes crinkling. “You really were a late bloomer.”

Will rolled his eyes. “I was practically melted against the booth, stuffing my face with food. At one point Johnny reached his arm back against the back to wrap around me. I cuddled up immediately, making both of them laugh. His friends were smirking about something, but I wasn’t paying attention to them at the time. Lou and Started stroking my hair. They’d only bought one milkshake for the three of us to share, with only one straw.”

Hannibal took a sip from his wine glass, as if imagining it. “An indirect kiss.”

“Swapping spit.” Will bit out.

“Intimacy.”

“Intimacy.” He agreed.

“Did anything happen that night?” Hannibal asked.

Will shook his head. “Lou Anne and Johnny drove me home. Her car was a convertible, one with three seats in the front, so we were all squashed together. I couldn’t stop smiling, almost falling asleep between them, and I...I actually  _ whined  _ when I got home. I didn’t want the night to end.”

Hannibal paused, se this whine glass down. “How old were these children? Exactly.”

Will smirked. “I know what you’re trying to get at.”  
Hannibal blinked, the picture of Innocence, and Will actually _laughed, _full on, head thrown back, throat angled and on full display for teeth the sink into. 

“You said they were Juniors?”

“Yeah, but Johnny started a year late because of the cut off curve in Louisiana, so he was already eighteen. Lou Anne was seventeen.”

“There’s a large difference between fifteen and seventeen.”

Will knows where this is going. “It’s only two years.”

“Two years during puberty. Had you masturbated before that?”

Will looks down. “I tried a few times. Too intense.”

“Nightly discharge?”

“I humped pillows.”

Hannibal’s nostrils flare, the only reaction. “What happened when they dropped you off?”

Will shrugs. “Nothing. Johnny jokingly carried me out of the car because I was half asleep. He gave me a hug, ruffled my hair. Lou Anne gave me a kiss on the cheek. They invited me to go to the movies with them the following friday.”

Hannibal reached for his notepad again, eyes not once leaving Will.

“My dad had waited up for me. They’d brought me back before curfew. When I came inside, he asked where I got the jacket, and I hugged him really hard. We sat at the kitchen table and he got me a glass of milk. He told me I was allowed to stay out as late as I wanted for the movie next week.” Will feels his eyes water at the memory.

“Your father worked a lot. He wasn’t home very often.”

“He wanted me to have somebody. Anybody.”

Hannibal scratched something down on his pad. Will clicked his clicker.

The next week, they were both there to pick me up. Dad actually invited them inside. They made a good impression. Johnny and him talked about football. I was so excited I felt like I was jumping in my skin. I was wearing Johnny’s jacket.”

“He wanted you to.”

Will nodded. “He told me I looked good in it. When we got to the theatre, Johnny bought us a giant thing of popcorn, and a blue slushie to share, and red licorice sticks. They were going to sneak me into an R rated slasher film, but they could tell I was nervous, so we went to a Bladerunner rerun instead. They didn’t tease me about it at all. I sat between them, with the popcorn in my lap. Lou Anne curled up around me immediately, and Johnny wrapped his arm around me again. I thought I was so happy I would die.”

“It didn’t last, did it?” Hannibal’s voice was laced with sympathy, and Will could almost feel it; How Hannibal wasn’t looking at him with pity, or concern. He just  _ knew. _

“I had to pee about halfway through, and when I came back, they were making out. Lou Anne was straddling him, and his hands were groping her ass. And I realized that I was just a third wheel on their date.”

“How did they look, moving together?” Hannibal asked.

Will swallowed. “Like they were made for each other.”

“Do you wonder what that feels like?” Hannibal leans closer. “To be so in sync with someone else?”

Will shakes his head. “They knew exactly what they wanted from me, and how to get it. It was a game.”

“Who won?”

“I still don’t know the answer to that question.”

Hannibal hummed. “Go on.”

He cleared his throat. “When they noticed me, they acted like nothing weird was going on. Lou Anne smiled and hopped off his lap, sitting in my seat, and Johnny just pulled me down to sit-to sit on him. Facing the screen. He laughed at how shocked I was, wrapped his arms around my middle and just...held me. He nosed against the back of my neck and kissed it. Before grabbing some popcorn and continuing to watch the stupid scifi movie that I had picked out because I pussied out of the slasher film.”

“Did you get hard?”

Will breathed out shakily. “Not immediately. It took me a while to relax, but Lou Anne kept giggling and cooing at me, and eventually I was back to melting against Johnny’s chest. He rubbed my stomach soothingly, and Lou Anne was snuggled up against the two of us, hair smelling like coconut. I felt like I was drugged.”

Hannibal hums. “Skin contact. You were touch starved.”

Will snorted. “People thought I was the son of satan. No one ever touched me. Dad was barely around. And suddenly the girl I had a crush on and her boyfriend wouldn’t  _ stop  _ touching me.”

“We crave human connection, Will. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you need something.”

“Really?” Will snapped, suddenly furious. “You’re looking at a backwoods Louisiana freak, Hannibal. There was a lot more on my mind than touch.”

“But you  _ wanted  _ it.” Hannibal’s voice is a bit breathy. “Desperately. You craved touch so badly that even your own hand was too much for you under the covers at night.”

“I haven't even gotten to the fucking yet.” Will snaps.

Hannibal tilts his head, that ghost of a smile on his face. “This sounds far more intimate than meer penetration.”

“After the movie, they didn’t take me home. We went to Johnny’s house.”

“Are we getting to the fucking now?” Hannibal jokes. Hannibal  _ jokes.  _ There’s something about that word, rolling off his tongue in his thick accent, that makes the hair on his arm stand up.

“I was confused at first, but Lou Anne just kissed my cheek and held my arm, walking me inside. She said she was having so much fun that she didn't want the night to end yet. His house was huge, and no one was home.”

“Parents gone for the night?”

“For the weekend.” Will replied. 

Hannibal quirked a brow.

“We set up in his basement. He had a nintendo 64 and all the games on it, and we piled up blankets and pillows on the couch, and Lou Anne got a bunch of snacks from the fridge, and we just played. For  _ hours.  _ Even Lou Anne did, she beat both our asses every time. She’s taken off her shoes and her cardigan, pulled her hair up in a messy bun to show off the long length of her neck. At about 12 AM, Johnny asked if I wanted to spend the night. He let me use his hall phone to call me dad, who immediately said yes. When I went back downstairs, Johnny asked if I wanted to borrow some clothes. I was confused when he only gave me a shirt, looking nervously at Lou Anne, but she just laughed and said it was fine if she saw me in boxers, she had brothers after all. We put on a VHS and pulled the couch out to make a bed, piled in. I was in the middle.”

“Lou Anne spent the night?”

Will nodded. “She said she’d done it before, and since she was a good christian girl I thought it was fine. They didn’t bother telling me to take the letterman’s jacket off; I’d been wearing it all night.”

“It was about 1:00 AM. We were all cuddled together. Johnny had his shirt off, was spooning me from behind, and Lou Anne was curled up in my arms, stroking my hair. They were talking about something, I don’t remember what, and I started crying. Johnny panicked and tried to move away, but I grabbed his hands and put them back on my stomach where they’d been trailing, felt myself jump. I told them I was so happy I could die.”

Hannibal actually grinned. It was small, but he could see it. “They’d succeeded. You were dependent on them.”

Will nods. “Lou Anne started kissing all over my face, and I just cried harder, and suddenly...she was kissing me. Kissing me deep, tongue in my mouth, and it was so much. She took my hands and put them against her chest, let me cup them over her bra. Johnny shushed me when I started freaking out, whispering that they were happy too, wanted to show me how good I made them feel. I fumbled with her bra strap, but Johnny helped me unclasp it. He guided my head to her tit, but his thumb on my bottom lip and told me to put her nipple in my mouth. I sucked on it, sweating like crazy. She pet my hair and called me a good boy.”

“You wanted to be good for them.” Hannibal smiled.

Will crossed his legs. Uncrossed them. “Desperately. I got hard immediately. Johnny pulled my boxers down from behind, started groping my...my ass. Told me how cute I was, how small, how I shouldn’t hide behind my glasses, how good I’d look in a skirt. I was sucking on Lou Anne’s tit hard, biting down, trying not to cream myself. They got me on my back, made me spread my legs. They took my shirt off, but I started crying and they let me put Johnny’s jacket back on, said I was adorable, so  _ needy.  _ Lou Anne put my dick in her mouth, Johnny behind her, gently rolling her tits in his hand, before moving back to me. And he kissed me, harder than Lou Anne did. Fucked his tongue in and out, bit my lower lip, held his hand against my throat gently while he called me sweet, said I was sweet for him.” Will feels his breath coming harder, his toes curling in his shoes at the memory, stubble rubbing on his acne covered cheeks. “I would’ve done  _ anything  _ for them. And Lou Anne took her mouth off of me, and I felt something wet on my...on my ass.”

“She was preparing you.” Hannibal states.

Will laughs breathily. God, he feels drunk. He feels  _ drugged.  _ He’s never talked about this to anybody before.

“When her finger slid in, I wanted it to stop. Said it was weird, didn’t know why she was doing it, but she shushed me and kissed the head of my dick and said it was okay. Johnny kissed me silent, kept my whimpering in my mouth, said I was so cute, how could he  _ not  _ wanna fuck me? I asked politely for them to stop,  _ could we do something else, please you guys _ ?”

Hannibal stops writing. He puts his clipboard down.

There’s a hard look in his eyes, and before he even gets the question out, Will is laughing.

“I kept asking them to stop, and they kept shushing me, and by the time she had three fingers inside of me I was sobbing and cumming all over my stomach.”

Hannibal’s jaw ticks.

“Not so fun now, is it?” Will smirks.

“You don’t consider this rape, do you?” Hannibal asks quietly. 

Will shakes his head. “Nope. I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because after I came, Lou Anne pulled her fingers out, and she and Johnny shared this _look_.”

“Were they questioning what they were doing to you?”

Will shrugged. “Johnny was hard as nails, and Lou Anne kept squeezing her legs together. But they were looking at each other, and suddenly Johnny shook his head and started getting up, apologizing, and I actually screamed and pulled him back down, begging him not to go.”

Hannibal’s face doesn’t change. “We’ve already established that you were desperate for affection. Even in the face of sexual violence you wished to be held.”

Will shook his head. “There was nothing violent about it.”

“Will-”

“Hannibal.” Will grins. “I’m fucked up.”

Hannibal stops at that.

And suddenly he’s leaning forward in excitement, eyes twinkling.

“Oh, you remarkable boy.” He breathes. “Your empathy.”

Will nodded. “I was unconsciously mirroring what they wanted sexually.”

“They shared a sexual fantasy. They picked you to groom.”

There’s that word. The word they’d been avoiding all evening. The word Will sometimes whispers to himself, late at night, remembering.

“They had a rape kink, and picked the freak to rape.”

Hannibal grins. “But they didn’t rape you. You had all the power.”

Will shook his head, a twin twin on his face. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it. The words just kept tumbling out of my mouth, I kept squirming and trying to break out of Johnny’s hold, but I wanted it so bad I felt like I was gonna black out. So I pulled Johnny back down on me, made myself look small and vulnerable in his oversized jacket, and begged him to stay.”

“You were strong enough even then to fight back. You could’ve ripped out his throat with your teeth.”

Will shrugged. “Dad was big on teaching me self defense. I had unconsciously been doing exactly what they wanted me to do. I shyly kissed Johnny’s mouth, spread my legs apart, and asked what I could do to make him stay.”

“You let him fuck you.”

Will nodded. “He groaned, and I head Lou Anne start to pant. He said if I was a good boy for them, if I let him fuck me, he would stay. I started crying, asked if it would hurt, and he had to bury his hace in my neck and take a few calming breathes not to bust right there.”

“Lou Anne said it might hurt, but only for a bit, and then we could cuddle and keep watching a movie. I said okay, and Johnny lifted my knees up until they were flat against the bed. He and Lou Anne were talking, commenting on how flexible I was. The stretch hurt. I couldn’t breathe very well. He lined up, and I asked him to put on a condom, but he said he didn’t need to because I couldn’t get pregnant. Then he put his dick inside of me.”

“Where was Lou Anne during all of this?”

“She was holding my arms down so I wouldn’t struggle.”

“Do you believe she was simply going along with your supposed rape because she knew Johnny wanted it, and she didn’t want him to do it to her?”

Will shook his head. “No way. She was probably more into it than he was.”

Hannibal's eyes twinkle.

“He wasn’t gentle. He fucked me hard, balls slapping on my ass, squeezed my throat in his hand and kissed me. Lou Anne said I was such a good baby boy for them, that they were gonna take care of me, that I was so sweet for Johnny. He called me princess. He kept hitting my prostate, fucking in harder and harder, and it hurt. It hurt bad. But I could feel everything he was feeling, mirroring in back, and when he got rougher I just felt it even more.”

“He started slapping my ass, called me a good little slut, a fag, a fucking faggot slut, kissed me deep and hard and wouldn’t let me stop kissing him, just kissed me and kissed me and fucked me and fucked me and when he came inside, Lou Anne kissed him while I cried. He fingered his cum back into me when he pulled out, and they peppered my face in kisses and said I did so well for them. We put on Star Wars and cuddled, wrapped in each other's arms. He fucked me again, even harder than the last time, on my stomach so that he could spank my ass raw. I woke up the next morning to Lou Anne sucking my dick.”

“How long with this relationship of yours continue?”

Will looked at the ceiling, sighing in something close to contentment. “A few months. No one at school suspected a thing, thought the homecoming king and queen were just being kind to the freak. We went to football games and the arcade and the movies, and Johnny would facefuck me till I vomited behind the stadium. Lou Anne was always kind and gentle, always there to kiss me better after Johnny slapped my face hard enough to bruise. And Johnny was kind, even when he bent me over the bathroom sink to fuck me during fifth period, called me a faggot and a whore, kissed me like his life depended on it. He was always good to me afterwards, bought me all the snacks I wanted, insisted I wear his jacket everywhere. I cried every time we fucked.”

“Did Lou Anne and you ever do anything?”

“She let me eat her out if I begged enough, but she was saving her virginity for her and Johnny’s wedding day.”

“Like a good Christian girl.”

Will let his eyes slip closed. “My dad started getting suspicious. He thought I was getting bullied at school. I was covered in bruised, had trouble walking if Johnny had taken his belt to me the day before. He actually asked Lou Anne about it once, when she came to pick me up for a trip on her family’s boat. Both of them were freaking out in the car, and they wouldn’t calm down until I convinced them to pull over and I sucked Johnny’s dick in the passenger seat.”

“Did they believe they had made you like this? Manipulated you into staying?”

“Oh, definitely. I could see the guilt in their eyes sometimes. They talked about it at night when I was cuddled close to them, if they were bad people, if this was a bad idea.”

“Do you think it was?”

Will snorts. He feels calm. Calmer than he has in a long time. “It was a horrible idea. I’m sure to this day they still think they hurt me. But I don’t. I was just unconsciously mirroring what the desired most, and loving every minute of it.”

“You awful, clever boy.” Hannibal murmurs in reverence.

Will glances at the clock. Time’s almost up.

“Why did it end?” Hannibal asks.

Will shrugged. “Dad got called to work a dock somewhere else. We had to move away.”

Hannibal looks remorseful. “How did your partners take the news?”

“Lou Anne was a sobbing mess. Johnny looked like his world was shattering. I hadn’t realized how much I meant to them until I told them I had to leave.”

“Did they love you?”

Will smiles and leans back against the chair. He feels so relaxed, like he could melt. It’s a rare, weird feeling. Like he’s back in Lou Anne’s arms, Johnny sitting on the floor in front of him letting him play with his hair, doing his homework and telling him all about something dumb that happened at practice. “They did. I felt it.”

“Did you love them?”

His eyes open. Hannibals are staring back at him, and for once, he doesn’t look away.

“They helped me pack, came to see me off. Lou Anne packed snickerdoodles, and Johnny gave me a badly wrapped box that he said not to open until I got to the new place. They made me promise to call, promised they would visit when I gave them the new address, promised they loved me and I was their baby boy. They took turns kissing me when dad wasn’t looking, but I’m pretty sure he saw, because once we were on the road, he told me he was so sorry we had to go.”

“My dear Will.” Hannibal’s eyes crinkled.

“I waited a week to open the package. It was Johnny’s letterman jacket. I put it on and cried myself to sleep.”

He’s still looking at Hannibal. He has such strange eyes, like there’s nothing behind them but blackness.

“In the morning, I burned the jacket and scratched out their numbers from our phonebook, tried to delete the digits from my brain.”

“You still don’t know, do you?”

Will clicks the clicker, breaking eye contact to stare out the window. He feels that ache inside, that yearning for something, anything, to hold him. “It could’ve been my empathy, mirroring what they were feeling. Or a teenager’s desperation to feel loved.”

“Why are we always so quick to discount a teenagers feeling’s, when they are often so much stronger than our own?” Hannibal ponders.

“Because so many of us forget what it felt like.”

“Do you?”

Will shrugs. “Sometimes I think I feel the same way I did. Like I never changed, just added some trauma.”

“Perhaps we are all who we were as children, just with expectations forced upon us.

Will glances at the clock again. “So?” He asks, cocking his eyebrow. “Did you get what you need? Are you ready to rescind your bill of clean health and tell Jack I have a rape kink?”

Hannibal looks at him with sparkling eyes, lips turned up at the corner, and stands to collect their wine glasses. “Why would I? You said it yourself; you mirrored what they wanted, the way you mirror the murderer’s in your dreams.”

“What does that make me?” He mumbles to himself. “Insane?”

Hannibal helps him to his feet, wrapping his coat around him, and Will lets him for some reason. “You’re as sane as I am, my dear Will.” 


End file.
